The Healing Power of Mind: Simple Meditation Exercises for Health, Well-Being, and Enlightenment (Buddhayana Series, VII)


Tulku Thondup - 1996
    But when we mentally grasp and emotionally cling to our wants and worries with all our energy, we lose our own enlightened freedom and healing power, only to gain stress and exhaustion, suffering and overexcitement, like the turbulent waves rolling on the surface of the ocean. Our minds possess the power to heal pain and stress, and to blossom into peace and joy, by loosening the clinging attitudes that Buddhists call "grasping at self." If we apply the mind's healing power, we can heal not only our mental and emotional afflictions, but physical problems also. This book is an invitation to awaken the healing power of mind through inspiring images and sounds, mindful movements, positive perceptions, soothing feelings, trusting confidence, and the realization of openness. The healing principle on which these exercises are based is the universal nature and omnipresent power envisioned in Mahayana Buddhism. Yet for healing, we don't have to be believers in any particular faith. We can heal body and mind simply by being what we truly are, and by allowing our own natural healing qualities to manifest: a peaceful and open mind, a loving and positive attitude, and warm, joyful energy in a state of balance and harmony.

The Wondering Years: How Pop Culture Helped Me Answer Life’s Biggest Questions


Knox McCoy - 2018
    While these are elements of popular culture, they aren’t all it has to offer. Pop culture may not cure diseases, topple political regimes, or make scientific breakthroughs, but it does play a vital role in the story of humanity.In fact, it’s pretty hard to define the human experience without it. And it’s impossible to create pop culture without the human experience. Popular podcaster Knox McCoy understands this, and so do the tens of thousands of listeners who tune in to hear him talk about pop culture every week on his wildly popular podcast, The Popcast with Knox and Jamie.In The Wondering Years, Knox explores this idea of connecting popular culture to his own experiences. Through hilarious yet poignant stories, he reflects on how pop culture has helped shape his life and carve out the foundation of his faith. While the three cultural tentpoles—the South, the Church, and Sports—defined many aspects of his East Tennessee upbringing, it was pop culture that most definitively influenced Knox and his sense of the world at large. Through books, television, music, and movies, Knox found many of the answers he was searching for about God and the universe and why we are all here. The Wondering Years is a hilarious look back at the key influences that shaped Knox’s formative years and his faith, a reminder of our own encounters with pop culture that have shaped each of our formative years and continue to influence us today.

Neale Donald Walsch on Relationships: Applications for Living


Neale Donald Walsch - 1999
    Explains how to build and sustain healthy relationships with lovers, family, friends, or co-workers by strengthening the relationship with God.

When Heaven Calls


Matt Fraser - 2020
    Based on the questions he gets, they seem to think he spends most of his time sitting cross-legged in a trance, maybe hovering a few inches off the ground, leaving his physical body behind as he journeys across the veil to the spirit realm. But it’s not like that at all. The real Matt Fraser is just an ordinary twenty-eight-year-old guy…who happens to talk to dead people. Born into a psychic family, Matt carries on the legacy passed down from his late Grandmother Mary by connecting people to their dearly departed loved ones and delivering messages from the other side. His sold-out live group readings, television appearances, and popular private readings have allowed him to bring hope and healing to fans from around the world. Now, in When Heaven Calls, Matt opens up about his life as a psychic medium—including how he discovered his spiritual gift, what it’s like to connect with souls on the other side, what communicating with the dead has taught him about embracing life, and how you can tap into your own intuitive awareness to manifest your dreams, goals, and desires.

On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious


Douglas E. Harding - 1961
    Douglas Harding, the highly respected mystic-philosopher, describes his first experience of headlessness in "On Having No Head," the classic work first published in 1961. In this book, he conveys the immediacy, simplicity, and practicality of the "headless way," placing it within a Zen context, while also drawing parallels to practices in other spiritual traditions.If you wish to experience the freedom and clarity that results from firsthand experience of true Being, then this book will serve as a practical guide to the rediscovery of what has always been present.

Consider the Butterfly: Transforming Your Life Through Meaningful Coincidence


Carol Lynn Pearson - 2002
    Carol Lynn Pearson has for years kept track of the coincidences in her days, looking at them with a poet's eye for metaphor and meaning: a pan of "mama's cinnamon rolls" appears in the first shot of a movie just minutes after she and her sister reminisce on that favorite childhood food; a smiley face pops up on the computer screen during the writing of her daughter's funeral service; eight butterflies appear within an hour, not on the wing but in the word, bringing a message of transformation and hope. Learning the language of synchronicity can help each of us to more frequently access and recognize the wisdom of the divine. After reading Consider the Butterfly, you will never again see the events in your daily life as just events. You will start to see your name on messages sent special delivery, giving helpful clues on your own personal journey. Carol Lynn Pearson has established an impressive career as a best-selling author of more than thirty books and plays. With Consider the Butterfly: Stories of Meaningful Coincidence, Carol Lynn moves her relationship with readers in a new and more intimate direction, sharing personal stories in "an innocent and awesome show-and-tell" of her experience with the phenomenon of synchronicity. Carol Lynn is the mother of four grown children and lives in Walnut Creek, California.

A Zen Wave: Basho's Haiku and Zen


Matsuo Bashō - 1979
    The haiku verse form is a superb means of studying Zen modes of thought and expression, for its seventeen syllables impose a rigorous limitation that confines the poet to vital experience. Here haiku by Bashõ are translated by Robert Aitken, with commentary that provides a new and far deeper understanding of Bashõ’s work than ever before.In presenting themes from the haiku and from Zen literature that open the doors both to the poems and to Zen itself, Aitken has produced the first book about the relationship between Zen and haiku. His readers are certain to find it invaluable for the remarkable revelations it offers.

My Inner Sky: On Embracing Day, Night, and All the Times in Between


Mari Andrew - 2021
    In this insightful and warm book, writer and illustrator Mari Andrew explores all the emotions that make up a life, in the process offering insights about trauma and healing, the meaning of home and the challenges of loneliness, finding love in the most unexpected of places--from birds nesting on a sculpture to a ride on the subway--and a resounding case for why sometimes you have to put yourself in the path of magic.My Inner Sky empowers us to transform everything that's happened to us into something meaningful, reassurance that even in our darkest times, there's light and beauty to be found.

100 Days to Brave: Devotions for Unlocking Your Most Courageous Self


Annie F. Downs - 2017
    Whether you're coping with loss, making a major decision, or facing a fear, 100 Days to Brave will give you courage and confidence to move forward. With honesty and relatable humor, New York Times bestselling author Annie F. Downs invites you to embrace the path and plan God has for you. Stop allowing your fears to hold you back. Face them head on with 100 Days to Brave as your devotional guide to walking the road to your most courageous self.Dare to spend the next 100 days discovering how to:Experience personal growth, navigate difficult transitions, and overcome anxietyConquer your fear so it doesn't hold you backEstablish daily habits to keep you mentally strongImpacting 400,000 individuals and families, 100 Days to Brave is for:Women (and men, too) of all agesIndividuals wanting to ignite hope in their lifeDevotions by yourself, with a small group, or a youth groupGifts of self-care and self-discoveryBirthday gifts, Mother's Day, National Best Friends Day, and holiday givingAs a society, we are going through a lot! With anxiety and loneliness at all-time highs, it's important that you take the next 100 days to discover that you are braver than you know and stronger than you thought possible.Look for additional inspirational books from Annie:Let's All Be BravePerfectly UniqueSpeak Love

The Heart Is Noble: Changing the World from the Inside Out


Ogyen Trinley Dorje - 2012
    In these chapters, he shares his vision for bringing social action into daily life, on a scale we can realistically manage through the choices we make every day—what to buy, what to eat, and how to relate honestly and bravely with our friends and family and coworkers. His fresh and encouraging perspective shows us that we have the strength to live with kindness in the midst of the many challenges we face as socially and environmentally conscious beings. Because he sees the world through the lens of the interdependence of all beings, he sees that humans can change social and environmental problems by changing their attitudes and actions. And so, he shows ways that we can change our world by changing ourselves—by examining our own habits of consumption and by being willing to look into how our food reaches our table and how the products we buy are made. In his chapter on gender, he points out that we don’t have to label others according to a social construct. If his viewpoint seems optimistic, it is—and it’s also demanding. The Karmapa calls on us to open our mind and heart to the innumerable connections we share with others—in our families, communities, social systems, and on our planet. Thanks to the depth of his spiritual training, and the breadth of his curiosity about the world and his love for it, he presents a relevant framework for understanding what it means to be human now—and why it’s imperative that we concern ourselves with the well-being of all others. He points to a world we can create through our own effort, using a resource we already have in abundance—the basic nobility of our human heart.